


shoulders to bear the weight upon

by ninemoons42



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Death In Dream, Established Relationship, F/M, Intimacy, Introspection, Literal Sleeping Together, Modern Era, Self Care, dreaming of Rogue One canon, implied baze/chirrut, implied galen/lyra, whispered conversations in bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 08:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11158452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Jyn is haunted by her nightmares and by the terrible pains and terrible wars of the present, but she doesn't have to carry her troubles by herself.She can still hide in Cassian's arms -- and he can hide in hers.





	shoulders to bear the weight upon

Green fatal flare on the horizon, green lancing into the endless sea, green falling light, an instrument of power of and of nothing less than absolute apocalypse and destruction, green death, and it was coming for her, it was going to snatch her away, it was going to tear her apart -- 

She could smell salt on the wind and the reek of burning, the reek of cauterization and of burnt-away blood -- 

Blood already running from her own wounds, the multiple intrusions of weapons and pain into her body. Blood marring the face of the man in her arms.

Maybe that was her own death she was smelling, the sharp bitter burr of salt from the tears she was shedding in utter silence, in practiced silence, for she’d spent so many nights weeping and she couldn’t be heard -- 

No no no no, not like this, not this again, not this -- 

And Jyn suddenly woke up.

Nothing made sense in those wild seconds between opening her eyes and drawing a shivering breath: not the soft blankets that were tangled around her legs, not the two sets of curtains that danced faintly in the wind -- the inner set of lace and the outer set of much heavier material. Not the books left in haphazard piles all around the room, closing in on her bed. Not the blocky shapes that loomed out of the blue-shadowed midnight: the shapes of her dresser and her closet and her desk with its pull-down top, or the chair upholstered in soft soft plush material. 

Not the light that blinked at her from the bedside table, the green pinprick that pulsed at her to tell her that there were messages waiting. 

Just a text message this time, she saw as she swiped a still-shaking thumb across the screen of the slightly-oversized phone. _Plane landed safely. We’ll try to get in touch with you after tomorrow night’s dinner._ A brief missive from her mother, who was away at some kind of scientific conference. “We” in the message, meaning that Jyn’s father was still very much present and accounted-for: he, too, would have something to do at the event. An event that was also an excuse for a getaway of some kind, with their academic year now at the close.

In stark contrast to Jyn’s -- term would begin in only a week or two, here where she was on the other side of the world.

She sent off a quick response: _Send me pictures of the beach when you get there._

Only a minute, before there was one more text message. Different phone number. This one came from her father. _We’ll bring you back a little shell._

“Thank you,” she said into the heavy, close air. The lingering choking afterimages of her nightmare, the same nightmare time after time, and it still drove her down to her knees, still caused her to wake up screaming and soaked in her tears, in the fear that she couldn’t understand.

The words on her phone, the thought of her mother and father carefully quartering the sandy shore of a faraway beach, brought her a little measure of calm.

Whistling mournful breeze coming in through her window, through the crack at the bottom of her bedroom door, and she choked back a soft yearning sob, and forced herself to move. To get to her feet. Away from the nightmare, away from the terrifying unsettling flash of light that killed, of light that destroyed even as it flared more and more brightly.

No one in the house but her. The only footsteps that sounded in the corridors, on the steps leading down to the kitchen and the sitting room, belonged to her.

She clutched at her phone as she passed the only bedroom on the ground floor, and for a moment she thought she smelled soft smoky wood and pressed flowers, the scent of the tea that Chirrut made to accompany the dinners that Baze cooked when the spirit moved him. 

They, too, were traveling -- the difference was that Jyn didn’t always know where they were going. Nor, actually, was she always sure of what it was that the two of them _did_ : she knew that the two of them were highly skilled and highly revered martial artists, but even the throngs of students lining up to learn from their classes left them alone during their seasons of wandering, and that seemed to come twice or so in a year, leaving her alone in the house for months on end.

But at least they left her with provisions, she thought: she opened the refrigerator’s left-hand door and bit her lip, thinking.

Four eggs, a bunch of chives, a chunk of crumbly cream-pale cheese, sweet dinner rolls. Bottles of pale ale, three-quarters of a peach tart, and an entire loaf of banana-chocolate cake, wrapped tightly in several thicknesses of cling wrap.

She was on autopilot as she hunted in the cupboards for a pan and for the other things that she would need: knives and a chopping board, glass bowls, a bottle opener. It was easy to go through the motions; it was not so easy to calm her mind, even as she beat the eggs and cut up the herbs and cheese, even as she sliced more manageable rounds off the large slab of bread. Soft curds dotted with chunks of white and bits of green, and a little more cheese spread onto each roll beneath the scrambled eggs. 

Not even all the pale ale in the refrigerator would be enough to drown the memory of meeting her death on those imaginary sands, and she swallowed hard for a moment, trying to drive away the lingering sickening feeling of failure and shame that she’d felt in the dream -- 

Her phone lit up, suddenly, and began to ring.

Crumbs on her fingertips, but she managed to swipe at the Call button. Managed to force down her mouthful of eggs. “Cass.”

“Of course you’re still awake.”

“Pot meet kettle,” Jyn said, breathing to chase away the fear that still skittered up and down her nerves.

“Fair enough.”

Just as she was about to ask him to come over, he cleared his throat. “Busy?”

“Home. Cooking. Well, eating now,” she said. “I made scrambled eggs. And there’s still a lot of food here.”

“Let me in?”

She blinked. “What, are you here already?” And she pushed herself up to her feet, and started padding through the dark and quiet rooms. 

“Almost.”

She heard the rattling hum of a motorcycle on the move just as she reached the front door -- so she undid all the locks, and waited for the knock -- 

“It’s me,” and there was Cassian’s voice on the other side.

She let him in.

Winced, when she got a good look at him under the kitchen’s lights.

Deep bruises of shadow beneath his eyes, and lines in his face that seemed too harsh and too new even though he’d been wearing them for some time.

And she saw the compassion in his eyes even as he reached out to brush his fingertips across her cheek. “Too many terrible thoughts,” he said, even as he sat at the kitchen table and reached for her plate.

“Too many bad dreams,” she said as she passed him the bottle opener, as she accepted a fresh bottle of beer.

He cut himself a generous slice of the tart, and ate it without any of his usual grace, his hands tracing crooked lines. “And we haven’t even started school yet.”

“Yeah.” Ice from the freezer and two tall glasses of cold water, one of which she tipped greedily down her throat. 

“I don’t want to think about it,” he said. “No,” he added, when she tilted her head in the direction of the tart. “I’ll -- we can save some of it for later.”

“Planning to hide in my bed again?” she asked, gentle and not at all teasing. 

“You sound like you need to do that anyway. I’ll just crawl in with you.”

They dealt with the dirty dishes with an ease borne of many, many meals together: rinse and scrub and dry, and then Jyn snagged the remains of the tart with one hand, and Cassian’s sleeve with the other.

Up the stairs, and now she turned on the lights in her room: shades of blue and green everywhere, except for the plushie in the shape of a black cat at the foot of her bed.

Cassian’s jacket and shoes and gloves falling to the floor with a series of quiet thumps.

She dropped facedown into her covers. Felt him do the same.

She could still smell the sweat from her nightmares, though the damp spots on her pillows seemed to have evaporated.

She felt the rustle of Cassian moving next to her, and the next moment she was wrapped up in his arms, and she felt no need to protest at all -- in fact, she tangled her legs with his, the better to keep him close, the better to feel him there.

She sighed, and pressed her forehead into his chest.

Heard him rumble, ruefully: “I can’t save the world alone, can I.”

“Parents,” Jyn said. “Baze and Chirrut.” By which she meant, she knew that what her mother and father did, what her friends did, contributed to that noble task and burden. They were drops in an ocean; they were part of the effort, and it was a massive effort. It was an effort that included so many people.

It included the man who was holding her close, and in a way, it included her, too.

The rest of the space in her bedroom was taken up with boxes of kosher and halal food, most of them with long shelf-lives, and she was supposed to be taking those boxes to the local chapter of the Red Cross in a few days’ time, to be shipped off to wherever in the world they would do the most good.

And she could still smell lingering traces of the ocean on Cassian’s skin, where he had just been one of the driving forces behind a seaside clean-up drive.

“What am I going to do,” she heard him ask, “when I get tired of doing this?”

“Recover,” she said.

“Not easy.”

“I know.”

“Is it worth it?”

She laughed, and it was only a little bitter. “I think it is. We just don’t see it. That’s our problem.”

“Yeah.”

His fingers running through her hair. His touch fluttering across her cheek, over her mouth.

She looked up at him and he was close enough to share every breath with her, and she dredged up a smile, and said, “Hide with me for a while.”

“Yes please,” and he was moving even closer, he was blurring out of focus. He was the warmth that was sinking into her tired heart and her overactive mind. 

Shifting closer together, her eyes closed in order to feel his kiss and the beat of his heart that seemed to echo in her own chest. 

No hesitations, no questions: just checking in. The dazed look in his eyes when he pulled away, when she tugged gently at his shirt. They knew how to undress in such close quarters, now, knew just how far to move elbows and knees so they wouldn’t hit each other with a flailing limb. Perhaps it helped that she was wearing a ratty pair of shorts and a too-thin pajama top; perhaps it helped that he was wearing jeans that were a size too large for him. It was easy to strip all the layers away; it was easy to get down to naked skin against skin.

She drank in his quiet groan as she kissed him, over and over and over and then she had to pull away to breathe.

He pressed himself closer, and she let him: and she saw the plea in his eyes.

He affirmed it after a few moments. “I just -- sex later. Hold me for now? Is that okay?”

“Of course,” she said. Dull red spots on his cheeks, and she kissed the warmth of them, the grateful uptick of his mouth. 

“Do me a favor,” she whispered, sleep creeping in unexpectedly on the edges of her words.

“Anything,” Cassian muttered. 

“Keep the bad dreams away.”

“I’ll do my best.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Prompt Seventeen: "tangled" at [@rebelcaptainprompts](https://rebelcaptainprompts.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr. 
> 
> I am also on tumblr myself -- look me up [@ninemoons42](https://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)!


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